With an average of boys losing interest with Church and faith around the age of 12, compared to girls at 15. How do we keep boys engaged with Church and journeying in their faith?
There are some easy ways to keep boys engaged and interested. Although these of course can work for girls, boys will find that their experience of church is a better one, if leaders keep in mind these tools that help boys focus better and engage more. Although this may seem like stereotyping, let’s be clear that these ideas are not judgements on how all boys act, and are only designed to help keep methods at the forefront of our minds when planning groups, activities and events.
1. Boys learn by doing…
Reading out loud, sitting still and being talked don’t seem to come natural to most boys, especially after doing it all week in classrooms. But when accompanied with more engaging activities, there is a really difference in engagement. Making activities focused more around scenarios, debates, physical challenges and risk, does bring better engagement results in boys. You’ll fine that if you have more action points within your groups, boys will see it as a challenge to complete the tasks. The fine line is making sure the tasks are achievable as if to challenging, boys will feel defeated and be less engaged.
2. Boys need responsibilities…
Keeping busy helps any boy to stay focused, but if it’s also a job that requires responsibility and ownership, then boys will find a bit of purpose within the group and stay engaged more. There are many opportunities, jobs and tasks that you can offer… projector or sound operator, worship leading, games referee, group leader… Whatever it is, the young boy needs to feel empowered and needed. Then they will feel they are contributing in a positive way to the groups.
3. Boys emotions are different…
All boys have emotions, but tend not to be able to articulate them as well as girls do, sometimes out of fear our what other peers might think of them or not realising that one emotion has different sides to it. We can support this processing by helping them to think through the positives for them as guys. So as an example, when talking about love, which come across as romantic and soft. Focusing on a brotherly love or a bond that soldiers have as a band of brothers, shows that love has a bigger purpose than romance. The same goes with anger, an emotion stereotypically connected to boys for the wrong reasons. But when anger pushes you to fight against injustice, then it can fuel a boys cause to see change!
4. Boys need male role-models…
We need role-models in our everyday activities, but if boys in our churches don’t have male role-models to look up to, how are they going to grow into Godly men without seeing what Godly men look and act like? It is important to have male leaders in your groups, even if they are there to just fulfil a simple role, the presence of adult males can’t be underestimated as they will influence your boys within the group. For ideas to try and achieve growth in male leadership, check our post on ‘How to gain more male youth leaders‘.
5. Boys enjoy risk and challenge…
Many boys have a high testosterone level, and due to this can affect risk taking behaviour, leading to having higher activity levels and wanting to take action to feel like they are fixing the problem. It helps that when looking at topics and issues as subject matter for your groups, that you highlight things like justice, purpose and action to help boys realise that faith comes with risk and action.
Conclusion
There is obviously more effort needed to engage effectively with boys, and you can feel that as a leader overwhelmed with adding new elements to your groups. But if streamlined, the effort is worth it and can change the way boys continue to engage with faith and Church.
